Ticket marketplace StubHub slips on the public stage in its trading
debut on Wall Street
[September 18, 2025] By
DAMIAN J. TROISE
NEW YORK (AP) — StubHub received a lackluster reception on Wall Street
Wednesday.
The ticket marketplace's stock fell 6.4% from its initial public
offering price of $23.50 per share on its first day of trading. The
company's shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the
symbol “STUB."
StubHub offered just over 34 million shares and raised approximately
$800 million. At the closing price, the company has a market valuation
of about $8.1 billion.
StubHub plans to use proceeds from the sale to pay down debt and for
general corporate purposes.
The company, which is based in New York, said buyers in more than 200
countries and territories used its platform to purchase more than 40
million tickets in 2024. It was co-founded in 2000 by current CEO, Eric
Baker. He will remain CEO and maintain control of the company.
EBay bought StubHub in 2007. Baker left the company ahead of that sale
and founded international online ticket exchange Viagogo in 2006. EBay
sold StubHub to Viagogo in 2020 for $4.05 billion, essentially returning
it to Baker, who then changed the name of the combined company to
StubHub Holdings. It is among the largest platforms for secondary ticket
sales. Its competitors include SeatGeek and Vivid Seats.
StubHub reported just a 3% increase in revenue to $827 million during
the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. That puts
the company on pace for slower revenue growth after notching a 29% jump
for all of 2024.
Live Nation, which dominates the primary market for ticket sales through
Ticketmaster, reported a 1.8% jump in revenue to just under $23.2
billion in 2024.
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StubHub CEO Eric Baker poses for photos outside the New York Stock
Exchange before his company's IPO, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP
Photo/Richard Drew)
 StubHub has come under criticism
along with the broader ticketing industry over hidden fees and
inflated ticket prices. The attorney general for Washington, D.C.,
sued StubHub last year, accusing the ticket resale platform of
advertising deceptively low prices and then ramping up prices with
extra fees. The company is also facing pricing and fee inquiries in
Pennsylvania and New York.
Ticket prices for concerts and sporting events have been among the
sharper rising costs for consumers over the last few years. Ticket
prices rose 5.2% in 2024 after rising 6.8% in 2023, according to the
U.S. Labor Department's consumer price index. Rising ticket prices
outpaced the broader increases for overall inflation in both years
and that trend has continued through 2025.
The IPO market is on track for its best year since 2021. Other
notable debuts this year include the design software company Figma,
the buy now, pay later company Klarna, Circle Internet Group, which
issues the USDC stablecoin and the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini,
which is majority owned by the Winklevoss twins.
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